Tim Kaiser, maker supreme, ambient maestro, and two-time Circuit Benders’ Ball performer, is returning to Nashville on Friday, April 14th to perform a special set at Make Nashville. On Saturday afternoon, he will lead a piezoelectric pick-up workshop.

Based out of Duluth, Minnesota, Tim creates his own instruments out of thrift store finds, children’s musical toys, automotive parts, and in a few cases, snow plows! He plucks, bows, loops, and bends the instruments into melodic, otherworldly ambient music. This profile by Make TV is a great introduction:

Opening the Friday evening show is Nashville keyboardist and circuit bender No Stress (Paul Horton). Paul plays in the jazz duo Concurrence and is a touring member of the Alabama Shakes. As the solo act No Stress, Paul uses circuit-bent toys, keyboards, and looping pedals to make music unlike anything you’ve heard.

Here’s Paul at the 2014 Circuit Benders’ Ball (under the moniker The Tree is Base):

Saturday afternoon from 12pm to 3pm, Tim Kaiser will lead a workshop on making piezoelectric pick-ups, the very same kind he puts in his kalimbas and bowed instruments.

The class is called “Papercraft Automata” and is open to students ages 11 and up. (Younger students are welcome with parental accompaniment.) If the first class is successful, I hope to make it a continuing series.

Using Rob Ives’ wonderful paper automata designs, I will teach you the basics of mechanical movement. Each class will explore a different mechanical movement concept including crank sliders, scotch yokes, geneva cranks, gear boxes, worm gears, rack and pinions, and more

In the first class, we will learn all about cams by building the Hungry T-Rex Dinosaur! This is a great introduction to mechanical movement because the kit provides several sets of cams that change the dinosaur’s animation.

Cams have been around for hundreds of years. They are the main mechanical principal behind self-writing, self-drawing, and music-playing automata such as the one featured in the movie Hugo. There’s so much you can do with this one simple concept!

Nashville composer, coder, oboist, new media artist, and Circuit Benders’ Ball alum Robbie Lynn Hunsinger will perform Friday, March 11 at 8 p.m. at the Centennial Black Box Theatre. The event is a part of Metro Parks’ experimental arts series Free Form Friday.

Hunsinger will be joined by award-winning double-bassist Missy Raines and Nashville Symphony English horn player Roger Wiesmeyer. Hunsinger will perform on oboe, saxophone, Irish whistles, and various electronic gear. Expect a guest appearance by the Arduino drummer (although this time it may switch from snare to cymbal).

Rumor has it that Hunsinger may be bringing a scaled-down version of her phenomenal Frist Museum interactive installation Blue-Yellow-Red. (Read about Blue-Yellow-Red in Make Magazine.)

The Nashville Electronic Music & Synthesizer Group is a new meetup organized by Bill Vincent, Mike Hiegemann, and others. Basically, once a month we bring our favorite gear to SAE Nashville, talk about it, and play with it. The group has something very special planned for the next meeting on March 10th: a Skype Q&A with analog synthesizer pioneer Dave Smith.

Smith is the founder of Sequential Circuits and the inventor of the Prophet-5, which was, as his Wikipedia entry states, “the world’s first microprocessor-based musical instrument and also the first programmable polyphonic synth.” He’s a co-inventor of MIDI. While working at Korg, he led the team that produced the Wavestation synthesizer.

His company Dave Smith Instruments has released several successful products including the Prophet-6, the Tempest drum machine, and the OB-6.

So yeah. This is kind of a big deal.

If you’d like to attend, join the Nashville Electronic Music & Synthesizer Facebook group and RSVP here. Big thanks to Mike Hiegemann for organizing this event.

The general show & tell begins at 6 p.m. and the Dave Smith Q&A starts at 7.

While you’re whiling away the hours, listen to the Theatre Intangible episode Prong & Spittle featuring Bobobobobob on the Prophet-5.